


All Our Tomorrows Are Gone

by DoctorsOrders



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-16 16:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1354393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorsOrders/pseuds/DoctorsOrders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hope that Jim's going to be okay has been all that's kept Leonard going for the past two weeks, that and caffeine. When Jim wakes up, it's not everything Leonard had hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Shocking, I know. 
> 
> There's a bit where Leonard yells at god, it's not religion specific, and it's out of desperation, not irreverence, but just be aware that that is a thing that happens. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Not my characters, never my characters, I only own the sad

It’s approaching two weeks that Leonard McCoy has been awake. Two weeks since the John Harrison incident. Two weeks since the _Vengeance_. Two weeks since Jim Kirk died. 

 

It’s been all coffee and energy hypos since he performed the blood transfusion that he’s been praying saved Jim’s life. Brought him back from the dead. 

 

He’s alive, but Leonard’s not sure he’s ever going to wake up, and as long as Jim is asleep, he’s going to be awake. 

 

He presses another hypo to his neck, at the same moment he hears _Doctor McCoy to room 322, McCoy to 322_ over the hospital Comm. Leonard’s heart races, and it’s not due to the energy serum he just injected himself with. Jim. That’s Jim’s room. 

 

He tears down the hall, sideswiping a nurse on his way, “Hey! Watch it!” she stammers, before realizing who bumped into her. “Sorry Doctor McCoy…” he hears belatedly, the staff all know he’s on edge. Leonard doesn’t even care though, he just has to get to Jim. 

 

When he gets to the room there’s a nurse surveying the monitor on the wall, he’s waving a tricorder over Jim. Leonard all but snarls, “Give me that!” before ripping the tricorder away from the nurse. The nurse, Emrey? Emerly?, doesn’t even look phased, he just picks up his PADD and turns back to the monitor. 

 

“Doctor McCoy, Kirk has shown signs that he is on the edge of conciseness, obviously we thought you’d want to know. He’s begun moving, his heart rate is elevated.” Emmerson? says, somewhat unnecessarily, as Leonard can tell as much from the tricorder. 

 

“Alert Commander Spock, nurse, you’re dismissed,” Leonard growls as he glances up at the monitor. 

 

At this, he looks slightly unnerved, “Doctor McCoy, results are not conclusive yet, it could be hours, we can certainly have someone else monitor him…if you wanted to rest?” 

 

“I’m fine, dammit, I’ll do it myself.” 

 

“…Yes Doctor.” 

 

—

 

It is hours. 

 

Twelve hours to be exact. 

 

Spock has made his way there, quietly perched on a chair out of the way while Leonard buzzes around Jim. 

 

When Jim’s eyes crack open, Leonard finally feels like he can breath, like he’s been held underwater for two weeks, and his head’s finally broken the surface. 

 

“…water?” Jim asks roughly, it’s barely a whisper. 

 

Leonard hurriedly puts a straw up to his lips. It’s going to be okay, Jim’s going to be okay, Leonard is going to be okay. They’re going to survive. 

 

Jim sips tentatively for a moment. He squints as he looks at Leonard before saying, “Do I know you?” 

 

His mouth goes dry, “Jim, it’s Leonard, it’s me…Bones.”

 

Jim stares at him blankly for another couple seconds before shaking his head slightly, “I don’t…”

 

Leonard feels like he’s crashing. He tries to take a deep breath, but only manages a shallow intake. Spock throws him a look of the Vulcan equivalent of concern.

 

“What happened?” Jim asks, surveying his surroundings. 

 

His brain is on autopilot, “You…you were _barely_ dead, after you fixed the warp core on the Enterprise.” He’s got the tricorder out again, running it over Jim’s head, the scans haven’t shown memory loss thus far, but it wasn’t like this was a standard medical procedure. “You’ve been in a coma for two weeks.” 

 

Spock has made his way over to the biobed, and when Jim catches sight of him, he grins, “You saved my life…”

 

Spock’s eyes flick to Leonard in an unsettling way. “You remember who I am, Captain?”

 

Jim wheezes out a tiny laugh, “Of course Spock, why wouldn’t I?” 

 

“Uhura and I had something to do with it to you know,” Leonard adds quietly. The tricorder isn’t showing him anything new, nothing to indicate memory loss, nothing that should make Jim’s memory less than one hundred percent.

  
  
Jim’s brow narrows, like he’s trying really hard to remember, “I don’t know who that is either. Thanks to both of you though, I’m grateful to be a alive.” Jim throws him a small smile, it’s not the smile Leonard wants. It’s not even close the the one he gave Spock, and it’s nowhere near the toothy grin Jim used to throw his way. 

 

Leonard drops himself into the chair Spock had been occupying. He can’t be in here right now, but he can’t leave Jim either. He listens numbly to Spock and Jim talk for a few minutes before Jim falls back asleep. Spock paces over to him and says in a way he’s sure Vulcans consider reassuring, “It is likely only temporary. Perhaps he will know you when he wakes up again.” 

 

Leonard looks up, his eyes are focused past Spock on Jim’s biobed. He nods weakly. 

 

“You did save him Leonard, if nothing else, take comfort in that.” 

 

And maybe he’d be able to if it didn’t feel like the broken fragments that made up his heart hadn’t just liquified out of his body. 

 

—

 

Jim does not remember Leonard the next time he wakes up. 

 

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the people Jim remembers, but it doesn’t make Leonard feel any better. He knows Gaila, and Scotty, but can’t remember Sulu. He smiles at Pavel, and Janice, but shakes his head at Carol.

 

He’s been awake, on and off, for two days with a steady stream of visitors. Jim’s tired, but doesn’t seem to be in bad shape. There’s no way he’ll be allowed to leave the hospital for another week, but all medical evidence points to a full recovery. That is, except the missing pieces of his memories. 

 

It’s eating away at Leonard, and it gets harder every time he goes back into Jim’s room. M’Benga catches him in hallway on the fifteenth day. “Leonard, you’ve got to take a break.” 

 

He shakes his head fiercely, “Don’t gotta do that Geoff, I’m fine.” 

 

“Leonard, I’m saying this as a friend and a colleague. You’re going to kill yourself, the human body is not made to go this long without sleep. I know you haven’t taken a break since you got back on planet.” M’Benga claps him on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay Leonard, but not if you kill yourself trying to make it that way.” 

 

Something in Leonard’s face must fall because Geoff steers him back to his office and sits him on the cot shoved next to the desk, “Get some sleep Leonard.”  
  
“I’m not gonna be able to sleep,” Leonard mutters, riffling through his desk drawer, pulling out a bottle of burbon and taking a swig. 

 

Geoff shakes his head and takes the bottle out of his hands. He pulls out a hypo from his coat pocket. The second it hits Leonard’s neck he knows it’s a sedative, the bastard, “Watch him for me, _please_ ,” he begs before he loses consciousness. 

 

—

 

Leonard wakes up several hours later when the sedative wears off, his adrenaline kicking in. He’s up immediately, making his way to Jim’s room, and the only thing he knows for certain is that he feels worse. 

 

Jim looks a little startled when the door to his room opens, the PADD in his hands falls to his stomach. “Hey Doctor McCoy!” Jim says cheerfully. 

 

Leonard wants to cry. Not Bones. It’s never going to be Bones again. 

 

He throws professional to the wind as he grabs Jim’s hand, “You don’t know me at all, Jim? You don’t remember a thing?” 

 

Jim’s eyes go wide, Leonard can see he feels bad, Jim can tell he’s hurting him. Jim bites his lip and scrunches his eyes closed futilely, “I’m sorry, I really don’t.” 

 

Leonard feels the lump in the back of his throat, he can’t look Jim in the eyes, but he can’t look away from him. He just stands there in absolute silence for a full minute while Jim’s eyes rake over him. 

 

“What were we?” Jim says after a little while. “What was I to you?”

 

 _Everything_. Leonard thinks, You were my everything.

 

He doesn’t say that though. It’s not fair to Jim, it’s not fair to pile his shit on Jim again, not when he’s already been through so much. 

 

Instead he says, “forget it, kid,” before dropping Jim’s hand and making his way out of the room. 

 

He feels the tears burning in his eyes before he gets back to his office. He wishes he could slam the door, but instead it swishes closed nonchalantly behind him. He wants to scream. He’s numb, but he’s not numb enough.

 

“All those hours I prayed!” Leonard starts, his voice hollow, “this is not what I was askin’ you for.” Leonard shakes as he pulls out the bourbon bottle again. “Are you determined for me to suffer? Daddy used to tell me you weren’t a spiteful god, but he was wrong. He was _so_ wrong.” He takes a long swig from the bottle, tears finally spilling over, “Fuck you, goddammit _fuck you_.” 

 

Leonard’s sure he must have died at some point when he wasn’t paying attention, because this? This is surely hell. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so everyone wanted a continuation, and it felt awfully sadistic to just leave it all sad, so here we go! Part two! I hope it's everything you wanted <3

It’s the Friday after Jim woke up, and he’s set to go home the following day. Jim’s back to his old self, cheerful, full of energy—that is for someone who’s woken up from a coma—and cheeky. 

 

Leonard is also back to his old self too, so to speak. His post-divorce self, not the self that was CMO on _The Enterprise_. He hasn’t shaved all week, he hasn’t left the hospital either. Sleeping in his office, drinking in his office, just dragging himself through the motions of life. Leonard’s not sure if he can drink away the pain of losing Jim Kirk, but he’s hell-bent on trying.  
  
He hasn’t stopped checking on Jim though, even if a little more of his soul dies every time he sets foot in the room. The alternative is not seeing Jim, and that is somehow worse. Jim doesn’t smile when Leonard comes in anymore, he doesn’t say much of anything, he just watches. Jim watches him like he wants to remember, like he’s trying desperately. 

Leonard doesn’t say anything either, there isn’t really anything to say. He’s unwilling to recount their time together, it seems hollow without Jim’s memories, it seems pathetic. He’s never deserved Jim anyway. 

 

Each time, just before Leonard leaves, he pauses at the door, and holds Jim’s gaze.  And each time, Jim gives a small, almost imperceptible, shake of his head. They both know what it means. 

 

Leonard has decided that after Jim is released, he’s done, he won’t ever see Jim again. He’s certainly not going back into the Black, and Jim certainly is, and that’s how it will end.

 

—

 

It’s the middle of the night when he hears his office door swish open, which hits his sleep clogged, still slightly drunk, mind as odd, since he knows he locked it. He sits up, groggy, annoyed to see what could possibly be so important that he needed to be woken up in person, only to be met with the sight of Jim Kirk. 

 

Jim is obviously sleepwalking, something that hasn’t happened since the _Narada_ incident. He’s standing still, swaying slightly, just to the inside of the door, muttering something under his breath that sounds like routine docking commands. Leonard huffs a sigh and heaves himself off the cot, ready to maneuver Jim back to his room. 

 

“You would still remember the override code to my office, kid,” Leonard says quietly shaking his head. He puts one hand on the small of Jim’s back and the other on his shoulder. He knows from experience Jim won’t respond to him in this state, and he’s still a little buzzed so the words just come tumbling out.

 

“I’m so damn angry, Jim.” He starts, when they’re just outside his office. “Not at you o’course, at this whole fucking situation…at god. That asshole, m’staring to think I just deserve misery. I never thought I deserved you, your friendship, let alone your—” he swallows back the lump in his throat, “your love…When you kissed me that first time, you were so drunk. I didn’t think you’d even remember it in the morning, hell, part of me prayed you wouldn’t because I didn’t want to lose you as a friend. If that isn’t irony for you there…I didn’t want to lose you.”

 

“I still don’t want to lose you, Jim,” his voice finally cracks, tears burning his face as they streak down his cheeks, “I don’t want to lose you even though I already have.” 

 

They’re back in Jim’s hospital room, and Leonard uses the control panel on the biobed to turn it vertical. He engages the gravity field to keep Jim secured to the bed before ordering it horizontal again. Leonard surveys Jim for a moment, still sleeping deeply, before he picks up his hand. “I miss you so goddamn much, kid,” he breathes, turning his eyes towards the ceiling. 

 

“Thanks Bones,” he hears from the biobed. It’s so soft he thinks he must have imagined it, his eyes snapping back down. Jim’s snoring lightly, no sign he said anything. And he couldn’t have possibly heard right. There’s no way Jim said anything. Maybe the fifteen sleepless days have caught up to him. Maybe it’s the fact that his blood is mostly bourbon. Maybe he’s hallucinating out of sheer desperation. Nothing could hurt him more than a shred of misplaced hope at this point. He’s not sure he’s got the right to hope for anything anymore. 

 

Leonard knows it’s going to absolutely break him when Jim wakes up and doesn’t remember again, but he doesn’t care. He pulls a chair over to the side of Jim’s biobed and drops himself into it. He clutches Jim’s hand like it’s the only thing holding him on the earth and tries to take in every last bit of Jim before he’s gone forever.

 

—

 

“Bones?” 

 

Leonard frowns, trying to clear his head. He’s got to drink something stronger tomorrow night, he hates these dreams, they hurt too much. 

 

“ _Bones_?” 

 

It’s more insistent this time. Why his mind is intent on torturing him while he’s asleep too is a mystery. 

 

“BONES!” 

 

Someone is shaking him now, and fuck, at least this dream is going to be over now. 

 

Leonard looks up, and finds himself face to face with a very amused Jim Kirk. Leonard’s definitely hung over, and is in no condition to be dealing with amnesiac Jim. 

 

“Damn you look like hell,” Jim says with a grin, “and what’s with this?” he continues, shaking their still clasped hands in the air, “I thought we didn’t do PDA.”

 

Leonard stares at him, blank-faced, he must be dreaming still, a fucked up dream that his heartbroken mind has managed to conjure up. 

 

“Well come on then Bones, don’t tell you thought I wasn’t going to wake up! I’m like a cat, nine lives, you can’t get rid of me that easy. Although, I have to say, I thought I’d be a lot more tired, waking up from the dead and all…” Jim chirps away a thousand miles a minute. 

 

“…Jim,” Leonard starts, his voice hoarse, hesitant. This doesn’t feel like a dream, but if it is, and he wakes up he’s not sure what he’ll do.

 

“Bones,” Jim says, leaning over to Leonard who’s propped up on his hand, “don’t tell me you’re not happy to see me.” He kisses the tip of Leonard’s noise before grinning. 

 

Jim grinning like that at him, it’s all he wanted for three weeks. Leonard honestly didn’t think he’d ever get to see that grin again, and he just loses it. He buries his face in the hand not clinging to Jim’s and just loses it. They’re not the slow, burning tears he’s been crying on and off for a week, but giant heaving sobs, that wrack his entire body. Fat tears splash on the bed, that carry all the hurt and pain that have built up in his body over the past three weeks. Despite them he doesn’t let go of Jim’s hand. Jim’s free hand is on his head, pushing though his hair.

 

“Oh, hey I’m sorry, I don’t mean to joke about it.” His voice drops to just above a whisper, “Dying was fucking terrifying. I don’t even know how you saved me, but…” Jim trails off, unnerved by Leonard’s response. 

 

Leonard knows he should be a composed doctor right now, he should sit up and calmly explain what is going on to Jim. Or, better yet, he should get a tricorder out and see if he can figure out how the hell it is Jim has suddenly regained his memory. Despite knowing what he should be doing, he continues bawling next to Jim for several more minutes. 

 

When he finally regains enough composure to look at Jim again—his face wet, nose running—Jim looks more scared then Leonard has ever seen. He's sure Jim's never seen him like this. Leonard wipes his face on his sleeve before climbing into the bed with Jim, the monitor on the wall making angry beeping noises. 

 

“Bones, _what_ happened?” Jim asks resting his head on Leonard’s shoulder. 

 

“I missed you so much, darlin’,” Leonard says wrapping his arms around Jim, “I thought I’d lost you, I really did. I didn't think you were coming back this time.” 

 

 _Doctor McCoy to room 322, McCoy to 322_ the hospital Comm chirps from the hallway. 

 

“Hey that’s you,” Jim says, jabbing a finger into Leonard’s ribs, “You should go.”

 

Leonard barks out a laugh at the thought of going anywhere before he realizes why they’re paging him, “We’re in 322, Jim. Your vitals are offline because I’m in your bed.”

 

Two nurses come rushing in, and stop dumbfounded as they take in the sight of Jim tangled in Leonard’s arm. They stare at each other for a second before the Andorian nurse says, “Well Doctor McCoy, it seems you have this under control.” The second nurse turns off the wall monitor before they head back out into the hall. 

 

Jim pulls back to stare at Leonard for a second before he says, “You really look worse than you did on the shuttle, Bones.”

 

“I thought I’d lost a lot more than I had when I got on that shuttle.”

 

“You told me you had nothing when you got on the shuttle.”

 

“Well I didn't have you yet, darlin’.”

 

Jim’s brow furrows for a second before he looks up, “… _Bones,”_ he says, his eyes wide

 

Leonard nods and kisses him like tomorrow isn’t coming, because for the last three weeks, he wasn’t sure it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I don't have a good medical reason for the partial memory loss, or Jim's memory coming back. Just think of it like not all of his brain had woken up at first and the sleepwalking reset it? I don't know, I'm a writer not a doctor dammit! (A lazy writer clearly...sorry)

**Author's Note:**

> it's on my tumblr here:  
> toboldlyknow.tumblr.com/post/80421558053/its-approaching-two-weeks-that-leonard-mccoy-has


End file.
